Passerby @ 1
I find “This too shall pass” very helpful. It comes from old Persian fable.

Posted by: dh | Apr 12 2023 16:45 utc | 3

Posted by: Eoin Clancy | Apr 12 2023 16:53 utc | 4
The danger of digital currency is its misuse by the ptb.
Your every transaction will be recorded and you will be surveilled, not that you are not now, carrying a smart phone in your pocket.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Apr 12 2023 17:05 utc | 5

Posted by: Passerby | Apr 12 2023 16:30 utc | 1
I find music helps me. People here probably realize that by now. I try to keep a sense of humor. Generally, it is of a gallows variety, but it helps.
I read. I avoid loud people, for are vexations to the soul. Well, that’s not totally true…
Props to Desiderata by Max Ehrmann!
National Lampoon – Deteriorata I think aleph_null sent that to me. Eternally grateful!
I kinda started drinking again, uh, but I know that this time it’s different… Drugs now are garbage, so why bother?
Luckily, I am married to a well adjusted person. How did that happen? And the kid is cool. I try to not totally destroy the family unit I have. I am actually looking for a church. I am going to start to throw the I Ching.
I am trying to keep the wheels on the cart. I walk my dogs.
I avoid the Ukraine thread. It makes me really sad.
I always expected this day to come. It’s funny when now it’s here.
Fortunately, I have a beach to go to, and I am going to do that now. I will avoid eye contact with everyone as I try to act normal.
I know a few people who went the the 90s in the former USSR. That which does not kill me, only makes me stronger.

Posted by: lex talionis | Apr 12 2023 17:32 utc | 7

When visiting Russia in the early ’90s it seemed to me that people survived by depending on their social network, gardening at their dachas, and creatively using the resources available to them – whatever they happened to be. Of course some turned to crime and corruption as well while others quickly became entrepreneurs. ‘Russian solution’ was distilled by a variety of methods using a variety of ingredients.
Not rocket science.

Posted by: the pessimist | Apr 12 2023 17:39 utc | 9

@lex talionis | Apr 12 2023 17:32 utc | 7
Humor and music helps! Here is a bit of both

BREAKING: The Biden administration has increased support for the Dalai Lama in its latest move to counter China. Joe Biden released this photo as a show of solidarity to the cause of the exiled feudalists:
https://twitter.com/SpiritofHo/status/1646196034765307911

and
Heilung | Anoana

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 12 2023 18:10 utc | 11

Thank you Aleph_Null.
Post number 6 helped me a lot. Getting through the day in a declining society… well Russians have been there. I guess it is our turn now.

Posted by: Woke American | Apr 12 2023 18:17 utc | 13

coping mechanisms people use to deal with living in a failing society
@ Passerby | Apr 12 2023 16:30 utc | 1
Unplug Passerby.
Reading materials/news that does not have a direct effect on your daily life can be disconcerting.
Leave your smartphone behind, and go for long walks, while observing the nature.
Tangerine Dream heals all wounds. Take a listen or two.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Apr 12 2023 18:25 utc | 15

I would say we’re living in the Biblical End Times. They’re soon going to take out cash, and microchip everyone (mark of the beast). If you’ve read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the “Rothschild class” is going to usher in a false messiah, which is also told in the Bible. And that false messiah will tell people to take the mark. They’re also working on getting WW3 going, so that they can get a one world government, and also a one world currency probably from combining all the upcoming CBDC’s. As a believer in God and the Bible I just hope we won’t get BOTH WW3 and Armageddon. Hopefully it doesn’t work out that way. Either way I believe that Jesus is coming back soon. I actually do have a bit of insider knowledge on this matter but you would call me crazy if I told you all I know so I’ll leave that out. Also, for all you Americans, there’s a good likelihood that something bad (like it’s not bad enough already) might be coming your way. Read Revelation 17, it might very well be talking about the U.S.

Posted by: just somebody | Apr 12 2023 18:33 utc | 17

BAR calls out AOC for being a hypocrite, war monger, military recruiter for cannon fodder.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/misleadership-bronx-aoc-fraud-squad-military-recruiters-and-us-imperialism

On Monday March 20th 2023, U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Adriano Espaillat co-hosted a “Student Services Fair” at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and the Arts in the Bronx. As the official flier indicates, there was a large military presence . Alarmed that the two U.S. politicians, especially one who is a self-described “democratic socialist” and affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), were hosting this career fair, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition organized a counter-recruitment protest.
‘The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today’
The official flier for the event listed seven representatives that would headline the fair. Six of them represented branches of the military. Protestors observed dozens of uniformed military personnel walk into the fair through the main entrance, while AOC snuck in and out through back doors. She refused to address her constituents’ questions and instead sent a U.S. Marine colonel outside to address us. The military officer bragged about his time training Saudi troops and the countries he and his government have invaded.
The “duck test” is a form of abductive reasoning, usually expressed as “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject’s habitual characteristics. It is used to counter abstruse arguments that something is not what it appears to be. This same reasoning can be applied here to deduce that this “student services fair” was in fact a military recruitment fair. Yet somehow, AOC continues to deny that the military played a major role at this event.
Dr. Martin Luther King was crystal clear on this question in 1967 , exactly a year before the U.S government assassinated him: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” AOC herself has been on record speaking out against predatory military recruitment tactics targeting our youth. Why then did she decide to host a fair giving these predators access to disenfranchised high school students? The Bronx Anti-War Coalition understands that anytime and anywhere we see military enlistment officers or representatives of the U.S. service academies near our youth, we must confront them and chase them out of our communities.
After her security detail briskly whisked her through a backdoor clear of our protest, she decided to respond to us via instagram . Like other U.S. politicians who practice duplicity, she has a true gift for evasion. She smeared and lied about us in a nine minutes and thirty second video while doubling down on why she has a “responsibility” to inform Bronx youth about U.S. military enlistment “opportunities.” Did it not occur to AOC and her inner-circle to denounce the genocidaires in her monologue? Too busy victimizing herself, at no point did the Congresswoman address the reasons we were outside protesting: 1) to defend the multinational, working-class youth being used as cannon fodder to fight imperialist wars, 2) to stand for the Black, Indigenous and Latinx soldiers murdered on U.S. military bases, such as Abdul Latifu, Vanessa Guillén, Elder Fernandes, and Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz, among hundreds of others, and 3) to give voice to the millions of victims in the Global South targeted and murdered by U.S. sanctions, drone attacks and unprovoked invasions.
This article explores why the anti-war movement has a responsibility to continue to confront AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Bernie Sanders and any faux leftist professional politician and sheepdog who go along with the bipartisan pro-imperialist and pro-war status quo.
Military Recruiters not Welcome at Renaissance High School[1]
A central part of AOC’s attack on our rally was that we were “outside agitators” who traveled from far away because we heard false rumors about her.
The reality is that the Bronx Antiwar Coalition is comprised of parents, teachers, students, activists, and community organizers from the Bronx and many are AOC’s constituents. Richie is a Special Education teacher at a public high school in the Bronx. Danny knows Renaissance High School well because it is part of the Lehman campus where he coached basketball for 3 years. Danny’s son Ernesto teaches fashion and modeling there for an afterschool program. We are not outsiders nor a threat to our children, as Ocasio-Cortez alleged ; the politicians rubbing elbows with the NYPD and U.S. military recruiters are the true predators.
Hearing her gaslight us like a typical U.S. politician, we felt it was more important to expose this clever politician who provides a “leftist” façade for the Democratic Party. She is this generation’s Obama , another example of POC misleadership promoted by corporate media and treated like celebrities, used to give the same white supremacist, capitalist system a more diverse and modern look. While this comparison is not perfect, both politicians are very popular figures who have invited millions of the most dispossessed and disenfranchised to reinvest their hopes into an undemocratic and broken system.
It is important to move beyond liberal identity politics (i.e. one based on “representation” and “being seen” promoted by corporate “DEI” initiatives) and judge AOC and other so-called “progressives” on their actual voting record on vital issues for principled anti-imperialists. The “democratic socialists” in Congress and their affiliate association, the DSA,[2] play a specific role in muddying the waters on what socialism is and what it means to be a socialist. They portray themselves as “socialists” but lack theoretical grounding in Marxism-Leninism, serving the establishment by smearing anti-war demands, like “abolish NATO” and “lift the sanctions,” as “pro-Putin. ” We must study how truly transformative, socialist revolutions were successfully organized and led by the most oppressed in society. Study shows us that we cannot wait for a U.S. politician to serve the interests of the people, because the people’s interests are diametrically opposed to the careerist aspirations of politicians like AOC. Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara taught us that only an independent, mass movement of poor and working class people can take down the class enemy when he said, “I am not a liberator. The people liberate themselves.” Anti-colonial and revolutionary movements succeeded in 1917, 1949, 1979 and beyond. What other alternative to capitalism and white supremacy can boast of such a historical record?
AOC’s Record on U.S. Foreign Policy: The Truth is Always Concrete
True socialists are asking themselves: Why would the “progressive” Congresswoman from the Bronx vote for a $40 billion-dollar military aid package , among dozens of others, for a murderous proxy war against Russia with Ukrainian workers trapped in the middle? At this juncture of the internationalized proxy war, the U.S. government and NATO have undemocratically pumped over $150 billion of our money into this war. When was the last time she advocated for the nearly $1 Trillion Pentagon budget to be invested in our communities? Alongside her Republican colleagues in Congress, AOC proudly adorned the Ukrainian flag during Biden’s State of the Union Address. This was a symbolic moment because Republicans and Democrats claim to be at each other’s throats but in actuality subscribe to the same unwavering american-dreaming and express the same loyalty to American Exceptionalism. Why hasn’t AOC ever mentioned the 2014 U.S.-backed fascist coup that installed a U.S. imperialist puppet in Kiev? What is Russia supposed to do as NATO – the U.S. and Europe’s attack dog – encircles them and attempts to revert them to the humiliating Yeltsin-years as a neocolon y of the West? The U.S. and NATO sabotaged the Minsk I and II Accords which laid out a path towards peace in the region. AOC voted “Yes ” in favor of the highly propagandistic April 2022 “Countering Malign Russian Influence Activities in Africa.” Is Russia to blame for political instability and underdevelopment in Africa? How many African nations are colonies and vassal states of Russia? Mouthpieces of U.S. imperialism constantly warn of the Chinese and Russian threat as they continue to be the number one labor exploiter, natural resource thief, military occupier and murderer in the world.
After the 2019 coup in Bolivia, the Congresswoman tweeted : “What’s happening right now in Bolivia isn’t democracy, it’s a coup. The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair and peaceful elections – not violent seizures of power.” That was correct, but then she backtracked, expressing, “The people of Bolivia deserve free, fair, and peaceful elections,” after Evo Morales had just won a democratic election. She then met with coup supporters.
AOC has never raised her voice against the CIA-orchestrated hybrid dirty war against Syria. Syria and Libya, similar to El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980’s, have been subjected to the most far-reaching U.S., Saudi and Gulf Kingdom intelligence efforts to overthrow regimes with interests opposed to the Pentagon. She and the rest of the Fraud Squad just voted to maintain imperial sanctions on Syria, even after well over 50,000 people died in the 7.8 magnitude, February 6th earthquake.
AOC has failed to speak out in defense of Venezuela’s world-inspiring Bolivarian Revolution? Why hasn’t she vocally opposed the deadly sanctions on the 30 million people of this nation? When asked who was the true leader of Venezuela, AOC said she “deferred to party leadership” in order to avoid taking a stance . This was a de facto endorsement of U.S. puppet Juan Guaido. She even participated in a standing ovation for the U.S.’ poster boy for regime change during Trump’s 2020 State of the Union.
How could a “socialist” promote further U.S. aggression against China and support CIA-backed “independence movements” in Hong Kong , Taiwan and Tibet ?

The article continues at length. Ouch.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 18:39 utc | 19

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 12 2023 17:22 utc | 6
I stayed with a friend on Albany Hill for three months in 1970, it was full to overflowing then but was still charming.

Posted by: SwissArmyMan | Apr 12 2023 18:45 utc | 21

@ Aleph_Null | Apr 12 2023 17:22 utc | 6 & @ lex talionis | Apr 12 2023 17:32 utc | 7
Thanks for your great and interesting contributions here.
From where I am at, everything seems to be falling apart apace. Being old and growing up middle class in Seattle, that is my home that I am nostalgic for, even though the urban sprawl and gridlock there are terrible now (I was last there in 2016). But I got my university position in Philadelphia, which is my children’s home, so we are settled in here for the long haul.
I could have retired, but I don’t want to, and I don’t think I can afford to. Everything seems unsafe, because of the multiple ways one can lose everything here, so I want to hang in there for my family. We try to avoid debt, but fraud and worse happens every day, so one could lose everything in an afternoon, because none of the institutions is trustworthy. And all of the institutions of old seem to be collapsing. So I find Dmitry Orlov’s claim that the US will collapse like the Soviet Union plausible.
This makes one think of survivalism, something I have never indulged in. The trouble is that no one knows exactly how everything will unwind, and it is hard to find any blow-by-blow scenarios of that, despite Orlov’s The Five Stages of Collapse, Survivors’ Toolkit (2013), which is based on his experience in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
One advice of survivalism is to go to live out in the woods far from the cities, and I have a friend who worked in his life as a lumberjack, then moved to live like a hermit on 5 acres west of Port Angeles in Washington State. But he wasn’t self sufficient that way, although he tried to grow his own food, because his medical problems appear to have overwhelmed him in the end. To live as a hermit, one still has to depend on others. One thinks of St. Anthony in the Egyptian Desert, for example; people who respected his holiness brought him food.
So the main thing has to be to rely on community, and that is what is most destroyed and thus lacking in the whole postmodern American scene. We have our religious community, and that is vitally important for support and help. Never mind what Hermit has said here to ridicule religious beliefs; for the most part, the specifics of those do not even matter. What counts is the existence of community, and hopefully eventually extended family ties, though those have also been thoroughly trashed in late capitalist America.

Posted by: Cabe | Apr 12 2023 18:47 utc | 23

Tom_Q_Collins @ 19

The article continues at length. Ouch.

The Gravy Train pulled up to the station, starry-eyed AOC with her cardboard suitcase filled with dreams and ambition climbed aboard, the whistle sounded, and she waved the small town suckers goodbye never to return to Palookaville.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Apr 12 2023 18:52 utc | 25

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 12 2023 17:22 utc | 6 in response to Passerby | Apr 12 2023 16:30 utc | 1
Appreciate the thoughtful posts; from both of you.
I wrote and deleted a long reply because after reading what Aleph_Null wrote about his part of California, with which I’m pretty familiar having relatives in Martinez, Oakland and Concord (we last visited just as the pandemic was starting) I got to thinking about Austin and the Texas Hill Country. I have so many thoughts similar to yours about my geography and people that I want to process before committing any of them to words.
Get outside, unplug from the Matrix – including reading about Ukraine – read a novel (I suggest Haruki Murakami but I’m not exactly up to speed on the current “best seller” list), relax and meditate on what really brings you peace; happiness too. You can also get “mad” and start to plan for your elder years if they aren’t already nigh. It’s not too late to take steps to protect yourselves against the pernicious effects of vulture finance capitalism, which is really the driving force behind our failed society. Make friends with younger people. Reach out to your kids if you have any. Adopt a rescue dog (or cat). Just live life and try to forget about all this bullshit we’re swimming in.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 19:08 utc | 27

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Apr 12 2023 18:52 utc | 25
Yep. And I tend to look at cases like hers from a higher vantage point – it’s just what happens in this country. Greed is rewarded and even if one manages to get elected as a starry eyed, well intentioned representative who has (naive) plans to change the system from within, one eventually realizes that we live in a klepto-kakistocracy that is dug-in and in many ways ancient. The real left was crushed by the forces of finance and techno capital after industrial capital failed to do so resoundingly. Why *wouldn’t* a person think short-term and cash out as soon as possible once they’ve realized how little chance they have to make any meaningful change?
That said, I’m not excusing AOC or anyone else – not by a long shot. Even if she’s simply adapting to reality in the core of a dying imperium, she’s still a coward and fraud.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 19:16 utc | 29

I posted this on the wrong thread, so this is a repeat of my Stonebird | Apr 12 2023 19:22 utc | 292 (Ukraine only)
****
Thinking about Macron’s visit to China and the way that Xi treated him “royally”, including bringing out a 1265 year old musical instrument, which was played for him. (A rare honour)
One obvious reason for that treatment could have been to emphasise that he was the leader of a sovereign Nation, making a strict distinction between him and Ursula Fon-da lyin’, who was only an unelected bureaucrat along for the ride and to make sure Macron stuck to a script.
It came to me later, wasn’t Macron’s real role that of Emissary of the Rothschilds? That the “powers behind the politicians” want a route to make a deal with the new forces represented by China and Russia? That the Bankers want an out before the dollar finds it’s maker at the day of judgement?
Knowing that, Xi played the wise Emperor who shows magnamity to his beaten foes?
***

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 12 2023 19:37 utc | 31

Tom_Q_Collins @ 29

That said, I’m not excusing AOC or anyone else – not by a long shot. Even if she’s simply adapting to reality in the core of a dying imperium, she’s still a coward and fraud.

The human race would have been extinct long, long ago if it was made up of only cowards and frauds. Those that choose to be cowards and frauds live their lives in insult to all the courageous and righteous people that sacrificed all or a part of themselves to sustain us across at least a million and half years.
I think people like AOC, Sanders, and many others are trapped by the self serving conviction that the little they are able to do is important enough that they must keep doing it. You can rationalize that in times of prosperity and rising expectations but that is long past and now is the time of hard choices. For now at least hats off to people like RFK Jr and Tulsi, proof there are options to being a rank sell out.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Apr 12 2023 19:42 utc | 33

Stonebird @ 31

It came to me later, wasn’t Macron’s real role that of Emissary of the Rothschilds?

Sharp insight.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Apr 12 2023 19:48 utc | 35

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Apr 12 2023 19:42 utc | 33
True, but as I said we live in a klepto-kakistocracy and inverted totalitarian coporate/banker ruled country. Cowards and frauds are who rise to the top in this system. Failing ever upwards as they say.
Maybe I should’ve emphasized greed more than cowardice, although in some ways they are the same thing. On anything other than her public statements about the various wars, even Tulsi is just another creature of the system. Nothing she proposes domestically – in areas that matter like the social safety net, infrastructure, homelessness, how to deal with the criminal casinos on Wall Street that own the government, seems to differ very much from the other Corporate Democrats, or occasionally the likes of Bernie, and AOC. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have a public figure willing to speak out against the Forever Wars and aggressive USSA militarism abroad. Maybe I’m just feeling defeated because for the last 20+ years it seems as though nobody is talking about the right things; instead devoting all their energy to stupid shit like the culture wars, smearing Russia, China, Venezuela, etc. Even the amount of time I spend reading comments here – mostly on Ukraine – feels like a bit of a waste. They own the schools, they write the history books, they will be the arbiters of how the story is told to and believed by 99.9% of the population. I haven’t been able to change one person’s mind on the Ukraine-Russia / NATO proxy war and from what I gather here and elsewhere, not many others have either.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:01 utc | 37

Much love to the MoA community!
Shout outs!
Big up passerby for starting the conversation.
To the mighty Scorpion for the I Ching!
wayinnorwar for the Jim Hall. Beautiful. I was not aware of him. Thanks! And, the Alan Watts mention. Rock on!
cabe, ‘triladelphia (that’s what the kids say) is my favorite US city. A real city. I do like Detroit, and I would love to visit Baltimore. Hang in there. Daisy has a good prepper site which is easily found. I wit’ you about that, homes. Plata o plomo.
Tom_Q_Collins – fellow Californian here. Maybe it was you who sent the Deteriorata link… Regardless, Golden State! And thanks for the BAR (Black Agenda Report) shout out. I like them a lot.
Boris Badenov – What about Moose and squirrel?
Norwegian – Thanks for Heilung.
Anyone I forgot, forgive me.
Now I gotta go chase some paper.
999 – Feelin’ Alright With the Crew

Posted by: lex talionis | Apr 12 2023 20:10 utc | 39

To the depressed elders, please don’t avoid young people. Yes they are infuriating, maybe already half-broken by their teen years, but that is because there are no good examples.
Young people NEED to see you guys exist. Please don’t go out quietly.

Posted by: Rae | Apr 12 2023 20:20 utc | 41

Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 20:04 utc | 38
Can you think of any other western leader that got the same personal treatment? None as far as I am aware. So it could be Xi building up Macron as a disruptive element in the EU, or a traditional way of welcoming an Emissary come to pay his resects (and tributes) to the Emperor.
The whole derivatives multi-trillion dollar speculation game must be about bust. The “collateral” that it is based on is mostly paper, now flushed down a hole. The Chinese and anyone on the BRICS side are stocking gold, in order to lance a monetary system based on something solid. Could the BIS (rothschild organising HQ in Switzerland) be seeking a way out?
****
Any gold around where you live? Not that I would not be much use at finding it, as it seems that nowadays it is done mainly by large machinery, digging even deeper holes. I can’t even get round to digging holes in the garden.
*
Beatles
https://www.thebeatles.com/day-life
Last part …..
Ah I read the news today, oh boy,
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small,
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall…..

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 12 2023 20:41 utc | 43

Rae | Apr 12 2023 20:20 utc | 41
So often comments here bring back or trigger memories. In my early thirties we rented a farmhouse while I operated a potable mill in the area. The owner was a good bloke, Ken was his name and even at that age my son could talk the ear off a dog. When he wasn’t at school or building a high rise shack in the tree he would accompany Ken who would tell him tall stories.
To grow a chook you have to plant a feather. Yes dad, Ken told me so. OK.
Then the fabled trouser snake. I said well you best ask your teacher about that.
She was in her sixties and old school. a bit of a reputation. I guess I was a bit mean. He refused to talk to me about that question and answer session.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 20:48 utc | 45

Aleph_Null @ 6
That is cool. I have worked that area and will again soon. I knew one of the players on the alliance quite well before he passed on. In my California city I cope because the craziness is just not an issue here which is east of your location. We have not de funded the police. We are a diverse community. We have plenty of well paying jobs. We have a safety net of which Covered California is one. Homelessness is hardly noticeable in our city.
It is the global issues that are most concerning. It reminds me of the 30’s. Japan invades Manchuria and later heavy sanctions are developed leading to WW II. In the interim the economy collapsed, Britain went off the gold standard and their global currency came to an end, Wiemar inflation, Hitler (now WEF), rose to power and so on.
History rhymes. The difference I see is most of the old military bases in California are now closed. We thought that a great dividend back then. Now we got the fools are planning a two front war with no industry, no money, no morals, and a bureaucracy supporting them that has no idea of what they are getting into.
I cope by just pushing ahead with life, agog at the insanity.

Posted by: circumspect | Apr 12 2023 21:17 utc | 47

So the main thing has to be to rely on community, and that is what is most destroyed and thus lacking in the whole postmodern American scene.
@ Cabe | Apr 12 2023 18:47 utc | 23
From a curbside little-library box in my neighborhood (these boxes being one of the only nice things to emerge from covid) I stumbled upon an old philosophical classic, I and Thou by Martin Buber. One thin book comprising the utmost of Buber’s dialogic diversion from existentialism, including this encounter with a tree (Walter Kaufman’s translation):

I contemplate a tree.
I can accept it as a picture: a rigid pillar in a flood of light, or splendor of green traversed by the gentleness of the blue silver ground.
I can feel it as movement: the flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core, the sucking of the roots, the breathing of the leaves, the infinite commerce with earth and air — and the growing itself in its darkness.
I can assign it to a species and observe it as an instance, with an eye to its construction and its way of life.
I can overcome its uniqueness and form so rigorously that I recognize it only as an expression of the law — those laws according to which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or those laws according to which the elements mix and separate.
I can dissolve it into a number, into a pure relation between numbers, and eternalize it.
Throughout all of this the tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and condition.
But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. The power of exclusiveness has seized me.
This does not require me to forego any of the modes of contemplation. There is nothing that I must forego. Rather is everything, picture and movement, species and instance, law and number included and inseparably fused.
Whatever belongs to the tree is included: its form and its mechanics, its colors and its chemistry, its conversation with the elements and its conversation with the stars — all this in its entirety.
The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no aspect of a mood; it confronts me bodily and has to deal with me as I must deal with it — only differently.
One should not try to dilute the meaning of the relation: relation is reciprocity.
Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 12 2023 21:47 utc | 49

Ahh bloody hell. That last one was to Stonebird and I didn’t put his username name/comment at the top.
Stonebird | Apr 12 2023 20:41 utc | 43

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 22:01 utc | 51

One other thing I do to cope with all the dark analysis I study is to divide everything by 4.
I see a forecast by an analyst I value, calling X to happen, in Y amount of time – and it resonates completely with everything I know, and I believe it.
Then I divide the forecast by four. It will take twice as long to happen and will yield half the result. I still end up accepting the forecast, but I can breathe again, and realize that many things can happen also to change the linear path of that approaching train wreck.
I recall in January of 2022 reading a lot of analysis of the economy that said things would be in a certain condition by the end of that year. I chose formally then to remember in December what had been forecast in January, and compare what was, with what had been forecast.
The sky is still falling, but more slowly than we think. Even the evil people have often had to delay plans that they’ve crafted over decades. And as Tolkien reminds us, evil is often done badly.
So there may be room to dodge that sky, but only if we have room to breathe while it comes down. I find that dividing by four gives me room to breathe, and it hasn’t been overtaken by events yet.
Our plans will take twice as long as we think, and yield half as much as we expect – but so will theirs.

Posted by: Grieved | Apr 12 2023 22:15 utc | 53

So, in other words, perhaps all hope is lost, and perhaps there is still hope. One can choose whether to be among the hopeless or the hopeful. But not just as a style of being – if we want to have hope, we have to join in to help.
Posted by: Grieved | Apr 12 2023 22:03 utc | 52
I grew up kissing my butt under my desk, this is nothing, show business, dumb-ass politicians preening and prancing.
What you are seeing is what will happen, as the imperial state collapses from its own incompetence, local authorities will rise and try to legitimate themselves. A structure so riddled with unproductive parasites cannot stand.
Those new local authorities will need help, most of all local knowledge. I view my role as historical memory, I’ve been waiting more than 40 years now. But you never know how it will pan out.
I am US a citizen born and raised, and there is no place else I belong to or want to, no offense to others. I’m not leaving, these are my people here.

Competition: an event in which there are more losers than winners. Otherwise, it is not a competition. A society based on competition is therefore primarily a society of losers.
— The Doubter’s Companion

Posted by: Bemildred | Apr 12 2023 22:24 utc | 55

Grieved | Apr 12 2023 22:03 utc | 52
I reckon you are 99.9 percent correct. So many clowns not so much here but we see them on idiot youtube ‘survival crap.
There is a doco on an old woman I think in Siberia. My memory is effed but from what I can recall the family or husband and wife went bush. something to do with communism.
My memory is not that good. I don’t think this is the original doco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68
Few have any understanding of surviving without outside input. Not so much a matter of toughness but forgone knowlage.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 22:46 utc | 57

Oops wrong thread (well, the right thread really, or maybe so, gah!), such is the peril of browser tabs.
Taking a break, maybe a long one, maybe I’ll link or cross-post whenever I get back, or maybe not.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Apr 12 2023 23:23 utc | 59

Peter AU1, I am very much enjoying your posts, but I have to ask maybe its the words “pucker up precious petal” that are slipping into your psyche?… !هههههه

Posted by: Ново З | Apr 13 2023 1:08 utc | 61

@Ozark Grandpa | Apr 12 2023 18:49 utc | 24
Every day christers prove there are no god thingies by offering prayers that there will be no more school shootings.. and every few days, reality slaps them in the face (refer e.g. List of school shootings in the United States (2000–present)). Luckily for their peace of mind, they are impervious to reality.

Posted by: Hermit | Apr 13 2023 1:31 utc | 63

I’m surprised how Russia’s not even in the top for protective cybersecurity technologies and nuclear energy…
https://www.aspi.org.au/report/critical-technology-tracker

Posted by: La Cerise | Apr 13 2023 2:28 utc | 65

I was in need of sometime to see throughout the ridiculous argument used by Mehdi Hasan against Matt Taibbi.
It is clear Mehdi didn’t read anything about the Twitter files before having a go on Taibbi. If he had, he would never ever try to grill another journalist in front of the public.
Turns out, it didn’t go as Mehdi expected to unfold. He just throw himself under the bus.
I tried to make some references about debates between journalists in the past to figure out what strategy Mehdi was hoping to achieve.
Hegelian dialectics. Can we glimpse something of it around Mehdi? Never. Because his hardcore argument was about an acronym wrongly addressed as starting point. But let’s assume, it has. It is only used when one side has no other means to win an argument. The setback – you have to prove you are not an idiot.
Mehdi did all impossible wrong things to kill himself.

Posted by: Barnes | Apr 13 2023 3:15 utc | 67

ZH has a posting up wiht the tiele
D.C. Think Tanks Seething With Anger As Saudis Welcome Syrian Foreign Minister
The quote

Washington D.C.-based think tanks, such as the Middle East Institute (MEI) – which receives significant funding from Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar – are not happy at these developments.
The think tanks have long fueled the US rhetoric of regime change in Damascus, and played a key role in whitewashing groups like Syrian al-Qaeda and other jihadists, presenting them as merely “moderate rebels” – even while they committed horrific war crimes against the population.

They especially take on Charles Lister in the posting who is one of the more smarmy stink tank folks

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 13 2023 3:54 utc | 69

Posted by: Duke | Apr 13 2023 3:29 utc | 68
I didn’t want to necessarily “go there” but I have direct first hand knowledge about the amount of military spending on construction alone in California. But anyway, VA spending would be commensurate with the number of veterans and VA locations, so that would largely be a wash with Virginia and Cali still has a LOT of military activity happening. NAWS China Lake, Edwards, Beale, Travis, the Navy’s operations in San Diego, Vandenberg, all immediately come to mind. Much of the MILCON and FSRM construction budget is publicly available too.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 13 2023 4:49 utc | 71

Ah Charles Lister, a real POS amongst all the other POS Middle East stink tankers. 2 others I immediately think of are Juan Cole and Aaron Lund. I must check out what Joshua Landis is writing these days.

Posted by: Ново З | Apr 13 2023 4:53 utc | 73

This isn’t VA stuff.
Numbers of U.S. military service members are mostly driven by workforce levels at large bases. The five states with the most total active-duty and reserve members of the military, as of September 2021, were:
217,889 in California
174,598 in Texas
156,475 in Virginia
122,214 in North Carolina
107,385 in Florida

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 13 2023 4:53 utc | 75

Below is the title of a Xinhuanet posting and a Good Cop quote from it I like
U.S. urged to explain leaked military documents to int’l community
The quote

Wang noted that the top U.S. diplomat said at the so-called “Summit for Democracy” that the United States is working with partners to ensure that technology is developed and used in ways that reflect what they call “democratic values and interests.”
“Facts have proven once again that the so-called ‘democratic values’ claimed by the United States are nothing but a pretext and a tool for the United States to seek selfish gains,” he said.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 13 2023 5:31 utc | 77

“I’m concerned abt China. They build ports in Africa…”
Greek ex Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis: “ Ports? What’s wrong with that?”
https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1646077506422976512

Posted by: Menz | Apr 13 2023 5:40 utc | 79

IMF
@ psychohistorian | Apr 13 2023 5:41 utc | 80
Today’s FT laments

How China changed the game for countries in default
The fragile process for dealing with insolvent economies is now at risk of unravelling completely owing to a powerful and unpredictable force in sovereign debt
…
Some experts say Beijing’s lending spree to developing countries and refusal to play by western-established rules represents the single greatest impediment to government debt workouts and threatens to leave some countries in debt limbo for years.
…

https://www.ft.com/content/19add278-aa83-45f8-a84f-12750f32258f

Posted by: too scents | Apr 13 2023 6:26 utc | 81

@Exile, #16:

Watch a few episodes of the old TV show The Waltons to get a feeling how one copes with a society that is broken.

C’mon, the society of the Waltons weren’t broken. Ours is.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Apr 13 2023 6:55 utc | 83

Stonebird #31

It came to me later, wasn’t Macron’s real role that of Emissary of the Rothschilds? That the “powers behind the politicians” want a route to make a deal with the new forces represented by China and Russia? That the Bankers want an out before the dollar finds it’s maker at the day of judgement?
Knowing that, Xi played the wise Emperor who shows magnamity to his beaten foes?

Good question but I think Xi Jinping showed welcome to a nations leader that has some remnant capacity to think for themselves. Hence generous host to Macron.
The Rothschilds and co are large players in any financial pool plus they have influence in that one country that is placed unfair and square across the land route for the New Silk Road from the Middle East to Egypt and on to Africa – Israel. I know there are bridges across the Suez and perhaps one could be constructed from Yemen to Djibouti at some insane expense and vulnerability but a rail/road link via Israel/Palestine Egypt is a cinch – physically.
There is much to be gained in the emerging world order and if gained through goodwill, mutual assured prosperity, eradication of zero sum games etc., then so much the better.
I take the BRICS philosophy as genuine, as being a vehicle for shared interests and benefit and every step the Chinese Government takes seems credible. France taking tentative steps in that direction is possible and politics is the art of the possible no matter the odds. Right now Russia and China have pulled the rug out from under the UKUSA thugs and left the five eyes weeping for stupidity. Change is afoot.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 13 2023 8:04 utc | 85

Uncle tungsten @ 85
I think your bang on the money with that comment.
I came onto this open thread to make a comment that neatly fits the big picture you paint….
In the last couple of months we witnessed a tangible sea chainge in some world wide govenments willingness to go against the unipolar American rules.
Well im witnessing a similar sea chainge in the western public perseption.
Despite having no real oposition partys, no affective contrary media voice and no activist groups.
The public have had enough more than enough.
This will be the final nail in the American and england led facist coffin.
A seismic chainge in weatern public perseption ! (Mark2 copyright)
It’s coming and faster than any one thinks.
I’d give it 3 months.

Posted by: Mark2 | Apr 13 2023 8:29 utc | 87

Passerby @1 For me, it’s all about community. Living a simple life, supporting those that need support and providing leadership in the community if needed. The community need to come together, arrange some fun things, minimise the disruption by positive actions and taking responsibility.
Community is everything.

Posted by: Jo Dominich | Apr 13 2023 8:41 utc | 89

Sharm el-Sheikh is correct Google earth spelling, rather than as written by me in @90; Sharm el Skeik
sorry.

Posted by: Stonebird | Apr 13 2023 9:14 utc | 91

Old fart legion @ 92
I note the sneering tone of your comment, which is the real motive of it,saying more about you than us here.
But i’l indulge you this time..
It’s called having forsight, ‘trying’
To predict outcomes before they happen, as opposed to turning a blind eye towards major events.
The later policy is what has got this world into the mess its in, ‘on the brink’
So you chainge your blindness, we sure as he’ll aint changing our ‘risk assesment’
And yes your right… we won’t get it right every time.
Snigger.
What a fool.

Posted by: Mark2 | Apr 13 2023 10:09 utc | 93

https://t.me/ZandVchannel/60099
Putin – at a speech in honor of Cosmonautics Day:
On April 12, 1961, Soviet officer Yuri Gagarin opened the way for humanity into space. His flight was a grandiose triumph for our Motherland and all our people. With all my heart I congratulate the citizens of Russia and our compatriots, cosmonauts and everyone who works in the rocket and space industry on this holiday.
At the heart of our victories in space and on earth is the boundless will of our chief designers, their ability to achieve results in a short time in the most difficult circumstances – in these difficult times, we, in my opinion, have never had simple times. This gave our country such an amazing result. We became the first, because the people who worked at enterprises, in design bureaus, in scientific institutes subordinated their whole lives to the interests of the Motherland, to serving their people.

Posted by: anon2020 | Apr 13 2023 10:22 utc | 95

So old fart @ 96
Whats your solution to the world’s problems created by America then ?
Me offended ? I’m just toying with a kitten.

Posted by: Mark2 | Apr 13 2023 10:30 utc | 97

Thanks Mark 2 and Stonebird.
From what I read of the Arab/Persia emerging alliance it looks like something HUGE went down between China and those two. There is immense opportunity in walking away from the USA that’s for sure.
MbS has big dreams and strong imperatives to invest his vast accumulated sovereign wealth in big projects with decadic returns. Recall he shook down the sheiks and grabbed their stash in return for their lives and the lives of their families. He will need to come good with a long term tangible promise or end up with a bonesaw in his rs. Besides many of those sheiks were anglophobes and he is unlikely to turn his back on UKUSA for a while.
Equally the Iranian team are mighty fixed on negating the UKUSA fanatics in their neighbourhood. If Israel can be recruited to be part of a long term solution instead of its belligerent nasty self then that might lead to some peace and big relief for Iran and certainty in the North South Transport Corridor. China has been outspoken critical at the Israeli permanent assault on Palestine from the tidbits I see in press. Time will tell.
Now if only Azerbaijan made nice and Pakistan saw the light, there would be a solid shift to the east. It doesn’t take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Imagine the freak out in UKUSA.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 13 2023 10:50 utc | 99